1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a pixel structure and a method of repairing the same. More particularly, the present invention relates to a pixel structure and a repairing method capable of repairing broken data lines and defective pixels.
2. Description of Related Art
To meet the life style of modern people, video or imaging devices are increasingly being developed to be light and compact. Although the conventional cathode ray tube (CRT) display has some advantages, it has the disadvantages large space occupation and high power consumption. With great advances in the techniques of fabricating optical-electronic and semiconductor devices, flat panel displays such as thin film transistor liquid crystal displays (TFT LCD) have currently become the dominant display products.
Thin film transistor liquid crystal display mainly comprises a thin film transistor array substrate, a color-filtering array substrate and a liquid crystal layer. The thin film transistor array substrate comprises an array of thin film transistors with each thin film transistor having a pixel electrode. The thin film transistor serves as a switch for turning each pixel unit on or off. Furthermore, each pixel unit is controlled through one of scan lines and one of data lines.
FIG. 1 is a top view of a conventional pixel structure. As shown in FIG. 1, the pixel structure 100 essentially comprises a scan line 110, a thin film transistor 120, a pixel electrode 130, a data line 140, a common line 150 and a dielectric layer (not shown).
The scan line 110 and the thin film transistor 120 are disposed on the substrate 10. The thin film transistor 120 comprises a gate 122, a source 124 and a drain 126. The gate 122 is electrically connected to the scan line 110. The data line 140 is disposed over the substrate 10 and is electrically connected to the source 124. The pixel electrode 130 is disposed over the substrate 10 and is electrically connected to the drain 126. The thin film transistor 120 can transmit signals on the data line 140 to the pixel electrode 130 via selective control of the scan line 110.
The dielectric layer (not shown) is disposed on the substrate 10 to cover the scan line 110 so that the scan line 110 and the data line 140 are electrically isolated from each other. The common line 150 is disposed on the substrate 10 and to readily receive a common voltage. The pixel electrode 130 covers a portion of the common line 150. Furthermore, the aforementioned dielectric layer is also disposed between the pixel electrode 130 and the common line 150 so that a storage capacitor is formed in the overlapping region between the pixel electrode 130 and the common line 150. Hence, each pixel of liquid crystal display can have a memory/register function.
It should be noted that pixel defects or broken lines might be formed after the aforementioned process. Since the aforementioned pixel structure design includes no mechanism for repairing any defective pixels or any broken data lines, nothing can be done if such defects occur.